BAKU, Azerbaijan, Mar.1
By Fidan Babayeva – Trend:
The Azerbaijan Microfinance Association (AMFA) will work to develop new services for its members in order to enhance the countrywide financial inclusiveness, Board Chairman of AMFA Jalal Aliyev told Trend.
According to Aliyev, the association, first of all, presented its proposals on legislation to the related state and government institutions.
"The Central Bank of Azerbaijan, within the framework of cooperation with the Agency for Development of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises and other strategic partners to facilitate access to services that support the development of self-employment in the country, will start implementing the set tasks" noted the chairman.
Besides, he stressed that AMFA implements projects to raise financial inclusiveness and financial literacy for micro and small entrepreneurs.
"As an example, we can point out the project ‘Sustainable development of women’, a component of a more large-scale program of facilitating active and effective participation of civil society organizations in the development and implementation of national agenda for achieving goals in the field of sustainable development with an account of gender factors, as well as strengthening gender equality and empowerment of women,” said Aliyev.
"The Azerbaijan Microfinance Association has implemented more than 50 international projects. Among the main areas of AMFA's activities in 2021 will be the stimulation of women's entrepreneurship," added the chairman.
Micro-financing was introduced in Azerbaijan in the mid-1990s as a strategy to meet the economic needs of up to one million internally displaced people and refugees who were forced to leave their houses during the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
A group of international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) began offering micro-financing services to low-income residents and war-affected people to create opportunities for obtaining income and jobs in 1996.
They began to meet informally to share information about their work experience to remove the limitations that international NGOs face by issuing loans with interest rates aimed at achieving sustainability.
The members of this informal working group decided to formally form the group into an association that will serve as the coordination microfinance center in Azerbaijan in December 2001.
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